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The fact that Thanksgiving feels a lot like the harvest festival of Sukkot is no coincidence. "Before reaching Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims spent several years in Holland, where they came into contact with Sephardim who had immigrated to that country following the expulsion from Spain," writes rabbi and historian Gil Marks in “The World of Jewish Cooking.” When the Pilgrims later celebrated the legendary first Thanksgiving in the New World, their conscious frame of reference was Sukkot. |
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A Thanksgiving Prayer | Prayer
By Rabbi Naomi Levy
A prayer which can be used both in synagogue worship and at the holiday table
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A Song of the Ascents | Prayer
From Kol Haneshamah Daily Prayerbook
Psalm 128, from the weekday Shacharit service; likely recited when ascending to the Temple in Jerusalem for the pilgrimage festivals
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A Psalm of Thanksgiving | Prayer
From Kol Haneshamah Daily Prayerbook
Psalm 100, from the weekday Shacharit service, thanking "The Abundant One"
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In Appreciation of Those Who Work the Fields | Prayer
From Interfaith Worker Justice
An expression of mindfulness of and gratitude for farm workers
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Thanksgiving Day: A Modern Psalm | Reading
By Debbie Perlman, z"l
Written expressly for the Thanksgiving table
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Blessings Before Food and Drink | Prayer
Blessings phrased in the traditional masculine and alternative feminine God-language
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Blessing After the Meal | Prayer
By Rabbi Shefa Gold
An interpretive blessing based on Talmud Berachot 40b
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Grace After Meals Meditation | Prayer
From the Sephardic liturgy of Birkat Hamazon
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Thanksgiving Supplement to Birkat Hamazon | Ritual Component
By Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
To be inserted at the same point as one would add for Chanukah or Purim
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Appreciating Our Elders | Ritual Component
By Doris Dyen and Reena Sigmund Friedman
Questions for an intergenerational Thanksgiving conversation
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1492 | Poem
By Emma Lazarus
The ironically "two-faced year," when the Jews were expelled from Spain and Columbus discovered America
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The New Colossus | Poem
By Emma Lazarus
The stirring ode to the "New World" inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty
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